FETISHISM, an ill-defined term, used in many different senses: (a) the worship of inanimate objects, often regarded as peculiarly African; (b) negro religion in general; (c) the worship of inanimate objects conceived as the residence of spirits not inseparably bound up with, nor originally connected with such objects; (d) the doctrine of spirits embodied in, or attached to, or conveying influence through, certain material objects (Tylor) ; (e) the use of charms, which are not worshipped, but derive their magical power from a god or spirit ; (f) the use as charms of objects regarded as magically potent in themselves; (g) as synon ymous with the religions of primitive peoples, including under it not only the worship of inanimate objects, such as the sun, moon or stars, but even such phases of primitive philosophy as totemism. Comte applied the term to denominate the view of nature more commonly termed animism.
The word fetish (or fetich) was first used in connection with Africa by the Portuguese discoverers of the last half of the i5th century; relics of saints, rosaries and images were then abundant all over Europe and were regarded as possessing magical virtue; they were termed by the Portuguese Feiticos (i.e., charms). Early voyagers to West Africa applied this term to the wooden figures, stones, etc., regarded as the temporary residence of gods or spirits, and to charms. There is no reason to suppose that the word f eitico was applied either to an animal or to the local spirit of a river, hill or forest. Feitico is sometimes interpreted to mean artificial, made by man, but the original sense is more prob ably "magically active or artful." The word was probably brought into general use by C. de Brosses, author of Du culte des dieux fetiches (1760), but it is frequently used by W. Bosman in his Description of Guinea (17o5), in the sense of "the false god, Bossum" or "Bohsum," properly a tutelary deity of an individual.
The term fetish is commonly understood to mean the worship of or respect for material, inanimate objects, con ceived as magically active from a virtue inherent in them tempo rarily or permanently, which does not arise from the fact that a god or spirit is believed to reside in them or communicate virtue to them. After a certain grade of culture has been attained the belief in luck appears; the fetish is essentially a mascot or object carried for luck.
In the sense in which Dr. Tylor uses the term the fetish is (r) a "god-house" or (2) a charm derived from a tutelary deity or spirit, and magically active in virtue of its association with such deity or spirit. In the first of these senses the word is applied to objects ranging from the unworked stone to the pot or the wooden figure, and is thus hardly distinguishable from idolatry. (a) The bohsum or tutelary deity of a particular section of the community is derived from the local gods through the priests by the performance of a certain series of rites. A bohsum may also be procured through a dream, but in this case, too, it is necessary to apply to the priest to decide whether the dream was veridical. (b) The suman is "an object which is the potential dwelling-place of a spirit or spirits of an inferior status, generally belonging to the vegetable kingdom : this object is closely associated with the control of the powers of evil or black magic, for personal ends, but not necessarily to assist the owner to work evil, since it is used as much for defensive as for offensive pur poses." On the Guinea coast the spirit in the object is usually, if not in variably, non-human. Farther south on the Congo the "fetish" is inhabited by human souls also. The priest goes into the forest and cuts an image ; when a party enters a wood for this purpose they may not mention the name of any living being unless they wish him to die and his soul to enter the fetish. The right person having been selected, his name is mentioned; and he is believed to die within ten days, his soul passing into the nkissi. Nails are driven into these figures in order to procure the vengeance of the in dwelling spirit on some enemy.
African religion is not fetishism : it rests on animism and the belief in higher gods, not necessarily accompanied with worship or propitiation, which there is no reason to suppose has been de rived in every case, even in any case, from Christian or Moham medan missionaries.
A. B. Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples, chs. vii., Bibliography.-See A. B. Ellis, Tshi-speaking Peoples, chs. vii., viii., xii.; Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvolker, ii., 174; R. E. Dennett in Folklore, vol. xvi. ; R. H. Nassau, Fetichism in West Africa 0904). Also Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii., 143, and M. H. Kingsley, West African Studies (2nd edit., 1901), where the term is used in a more extended sense; Maurice Delafosse, Lets Civilisations Negro A f ricaines (19a 5) ; R. S. Rattray, Ashanti (1923) and Religion and Art in Ashanti (1927) ; P. Amaury Talbot, The Peoples of South ern Nigeria (vol. ii. 1926).
